Interview: Charles Smith

PLAYWRIGHT

CHARLES SMITH

THE IRT HAS PREVIOUSLY COMMISSIONED AND PRODUCED THREE PLAYS BY CHARLES SMITH: LES TROIS DUMAS, SISTER CARRIE, AND THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JAMES. THE RECLAMATION OF MADISON HEMINGS, COMMISSIONED BY THE GOODMAN THEATRE, IS CHARLES’S FOURTH WORLD PREMIERE AT THE IRT.

HOW DID YOU FIRST GET INTERESTED IN WRITING?

I was born and raised on Chicago’s South Side. I’m very proud of that. I read a Claude Brown novel, Manchild in the Promised Land, when I was in fifth grade. It was extraordinary: it spoke to my life, it spoke to my neighborhood and everybody I knew, I recognized people in that novel. What made it so extraordinary was that in the Chicago Public School System at that time, we weren’t reading anything like that. We were reading Shane, we were reading Lassie Come Home; for me, those books were like reading about people on a different planet. We were told that if we got caught reading Manchild in the Promised Land, we would be suspended. It was banned. The novel was contraband: we were passing it around, and everybody knew who had it. I read it, and it was great, and I became very interested in story. The school system’s idea of story, I was not interested in, because of how we were treated. It wasn’t really about learning. It was about do this and be this way, versus an exploration of how we were thinking. I can remember asking questions in class, and the teacher saying, “That’s a stupid question. What are you talking about?”

So the school system and I didn’t get along, and I left when I was a sophomore. I was still trying to read, but I didn’t know how to use a library. I would literally walk in, and see the first row, and start reading titles. I didn’t know it was separated in sections, and I would just stumble around until I found something that was interesting. I was working in the Chicago factories, and then I went into the Army. As we were shipping out for South Korea, there was a table, and there were Bibles and other books. I picked up The Iliad, and it blew my mind. I thought, this is just like Manchild in the Promised Land—exactly like it. Even though it’s not set in Harlem—the epic quality, the size, the scope, what was going on, the challenges—for me, it was exactly like Manchild in the Promised Land. While I was in Korea, they were offering a class on The Iliad, and I thought, man, I’ve got to take this, because I’ve got to find other stuff like this. But they wouldn’t let me take it because I was a high school drop-out and it was a college course. So I took the GED and I passed it. I got into that course, I took Shakespeare, I took Chaucer.

When I got out of the Army, I thought, well maybe school is for me. I went to the community college to continue my exploration of Shakespeare and Chaucer. I discovered that from where I was now, the stuff they were offering was very elementary. So I took a theatre course, and the professor asked me if I could act. I said “I don’t know, I’ve never been in a play. I have never seen a play.” He put me in The Runner Stumbles: I was the jailor. I had two lines,

and I could never remember both of them at the same time. But I would sit backstage and I would watch, and it blew my mind. I thought, this story is just like the stories that interest me. But this theatre thing! I wanted to be a novelist. I would write a short story, and I would give it to someone, and they would go away. And I would wonder if they were reading it. And maybe I would see them later, and maybe we would talk about it. But this theatre thing! You get to work with other artists, and you come together to tell a story, and you get to be with the people experiencing the story at the same time. I said, this is spectacular!

I started writing plays—backstage, during that two-week run. The professor asked me what I was doing, and I showed him my plays, my stack of stories. He said, “You should be in Iowa at the Playwrights Workshop.” I had been around the world in the Army—Korea, Germany—but I didn’t know that Iowa was the next state over. He put me in a car and he drove me there. I got accepted in the graduate program, but I didn’t have an undergraduate degree. A counselor looked over my transcript, all the courses I had takin in the Army, and he said, “If you take a language and a science, you can get a B.A.” I didn’t really know what that meant, but over the summer I took the classes and got my B.A., and in the fall I was in the M.F.A. playwriting program at the University of Iowa.

WHAT WAS YOUR CAREER PATH?

I had some plays done in Chicago while I was in grad school. Really bad plays. When I got my degree, I came back to Chicago. I did an internship at Victory Gardens, and then over ten years I had I don’t know how many titles. I was an intern, I was an artistic associate, I was literary manager, I was script czar, and I ended up playwright in residence. Meanwhile my scripts were getting produced. I was teaching classes at Victory Gardens, and Northwestern University asked me to teach a class. And it was OK. I taught another one. Then they offered me a one-year contract, and I said, “I’m not interested. I don’t think it will work.” I was still burned by my experience with the Chicago Public School System. “You’re not going to like what I’m going to say, which is that everything you’ve taught them is bullshit.” And that seemed to excite them! So I taught at Northwestern for seven years, and then I taught at Ohio University for 25 years.

WHAT’S BEEN YOUR EXPERIENCE AT THE IRT?

They treat their artists well. Janet really listens. She doesn’t dictate. She says, “What are you doing? What do you need? I’m here for you.” I’ve worked with other artistic directors who are more … lofty. Janet is there as part of the work, as one of us. She’s part of the process as a peer, shoulder to shoulder instead of standing apart.

WHAT DRAWS YOU TO WRITING?

One of the things I love about writing is the careful expression. I have found myself in situations … for example, with academics. I have taught in universities for 32 years. I am a “Distinguished Professor,” whatever that means. But I don’t really consider myself an academic. I should, but I don’t. A lot of them are very cool-headed and methodical. I am not. I say things, and then I leave the meeting, and I think, man, I could have handled that better. Writing gives me a chance to take a step back and examine what I’m thinking and what I really believe. Studs Terkel told this story about interviewing a woman, and afterwards he played the interview back for her. She said, “I never knew I felt that way.” It wasn’t until he played the interview back that she discovered something about herself. When I write, I discover something about who I am, about my identity as a human being, how I view the world. It also gives me the chance to carefully construct my thoughts, and be precise. It puts me in communication with the world; it puts me in communication with everything else that’s going on in the world.